SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Meeting at the Dept. of Economics, Gauhati University, Guwahati

Web page: http://gu.nic.in/

Gauhati University (GU) was founded 1947 and is just like the North Bengal University in Siliguri, a medium sized university with 250 affiliated colleges and about 100 000 student at the undergraduate level. In the university campus there are about 3 000 students at the Post Graduate level and it has a faculty of 350. There are six faculties: Arts, Science, Commerce, Law, Engineering, and Medicine. It is the central university for Assam and the seven smaller states in the Northeastern part of India. Note that the university retains its name Gauhati University, even though the city today is spelt Guwahati.

The meeting had been organised by Prof. M.P. Bezbaruah (photo to the right), head of the Dept. of Economics, and was attended by about 25 scholars , most of them researchers/teachers and PhD students in Economics. There were however also three researchers from Political Science present. There are 20 PhD students in the Dept. of Economics. After our presentation of SASNET and clarifications of our aims and ways of workings, we had a discussion about the research in the two departments and at the university at large.

Laboratory of ethnic conflicts

The faculty and students at GU are very much engaged in the conditions and problems of this region, where ethnic relations and politics quite naturally are recurrent themes. The North-East consists of eight states, out of which three originally were parts of Assam, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. The other states Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland and Sikkim have equally complex histories plagued by ethnic conflicts and separatism ever since the formation of independent India in 1947. After the bifurcation of Assam into several states in the 1970’s Assamese people themselves started to mobilise for a dominant influence. This agitation that mainly was directed against the large group of Bengali settlers in the state (especially Bangladeshi immigrants arriving since 1971) had a blood-stained peak around 1980. It subsided with the Assamese population gaining a dominant hold on state politics. But it did not put an end to ethnic conflicts in the state, which includes a large number of tribal people (13 % of the population, belonging to 25 different groups). The previous bifurcations, the ascendancy of the Assamese and the generally liberalised atmosphere during the recent past have all inspired these tribal groups, especially the Bodos, to demand more autonomy in the form of separate homelands and in some cases even the status of statehood.
Given the smallness of these groups, the limited area they command and their scattered settlement pattern (interspersed by other groups) these demands are however almost impossible to satisfy. Violent agitations have ensued and a criminality associated with this. Today, there is more violence in the form of assault on neighbouring communities, kidnapping, and most of all criminal acts of theft and murder than peaceful democratic mobilisation and negotiation. Thus, this is troubled state with insecurity felt in many locations. These issues figure high on the agenda of the research carried out in the university.

Assam up and down and up again

Another important theme is the changing role and status of Assam and the North-East within the Indian Union. During the colonial period this was in a way a central part of the British territory with its large tea plantations and large settler population. Tribal groups, not being controlled by Brahminical Hindu caste hierarchies responded to the call of Christian missionaries and converted (Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland are the three states in India in which Christians are in majority). With conversion came an early modernity.
After Independence, the North-East gradually slipped into oblivion.

Through the formation of Bangladesh, the area was cut off from the rest of India when ships no more could sail on river Brahmaputra all the way up to Dibrugarh in Upper Assam. Eventually the railway and road links were also disrupted, and transports to and from Assam and the other northeastern states became an expensive and time-consuming affair. In spite of being India’s main producer of tea, oil and gas Assam is almost a forgotten part of the country.

Today the situation is again turning and the North-East is becoming a hot spot in India. The anticipated large land based trade with China will go through these states. Cross-border trade and regional political relations also with the other neighbouring countries of Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar is, therefore, important issues for research at the university.
One needs only to take a trip on the so called highway passing on the other side of the river. The traffic jam at rush hour is undescribable and almost intolerable.

Other topics that figure high on the research list are, for example, economic development of Assam (agriculture, tea, and forest products); institutions and governance; demographic change; and environmental problems.

After the meeting, we took a stroll through the nice green campus of the university. We found that there is Centre for Women’s Studies (photo to the right). Unfortunately, none from that department had come to our meeting.

Researchers we interacted with during the meeting:
• Prof. M.P. Bezebaruah
• Prof. Srinath Baruah, Mathematical economics and econometrics
• Prof. Runumi Dowerah Baruah
• Prof. K.K. Burman
• Nani Gopal Mahanta, senior lecturer in Political science, and Co-ordinator, Peace and Conflict Resolution
• Dr. Dhruba Pratin Sharma, lecturer, Political Science, GU
• Dr. Sakiya Khan
• Dr. Nissar Ahmed Baruah
• Soi Jitu Jamuli, Research Associate
• Sri Sadananda Nath, Research scholar
• M.R. Kasi, research associate, OKDISCD
• Pradyut Guha, guest lecturer in Economics, Kokrajhare Campus, GU
• Geetali Sarma, senior lecturer in Economics, Tangla College, Dist. Darrang, Assam
• Abdul Haque Ahmed, senior lecturer in Economics, Bikali College, Dhupdhera, Dt. Goalpara, Assam
• Prof. Archana Sharma
• Ms. Indira Baruah
• Dr. Gayathi Goswami